Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Sylocat: I think that a lot of people here have forgotten the difference between an Idiot Plot and an Idiot ''Ball''. As near as I can tell, the difference is: An Idiot Ball only requires for one or two characters to carry it for the plot to advance, but an Idiot Plot requires most or all of the characters to act like idiots. Yes, there are plenty of genuine Idiot Plot examples, but there are also a lot of plain old Idiot Balls. Shouldn't we be a bit more discerning?
Snakeofthe West: I'm new to this wiki and not real sure on the rule or dicussion policy, but I have this add to the Firefly example of Idiot Plot:

also don't forget that Tracy's original plan was smuggling organs in his own body. Specifically that the people he was smuggling them for had his originals, so after he go the high tech organs to their destination, he could have his own back. Then he found another buyer for the organs he was smuggling. He clearly didn't think this through very carefully, because while someone might pay him for the organs he currently has, only the people that he betrayed have his original organs. Not only does he make this seemingly stupid mistake, during whole discussion of this problem, no one brings this up.

Radioactive Zombie: I'm sorry, did the person who put up R6 here read it properly? IIRC, the villain did it because he was an eco-terrorist.

Morgan Wick: It should be noted that in a comedy, an Idiot Plot is (theoretically) not necessarily bad, if the whole point is to laugh at what idiots everyone is. Which come to think of it, may (very partly) explain a lot of Three's Company...

Duckluck: I can't believe the Heroes example completely neglected the fact that Nathan stepped in for a heroic sacrifice even though, not only can Peter fly (and teleport) himself making it completely unnecessary for Nathan to carry him, but the whole situation would have been easily averted had Claire just shot him. There was no good reason for Nathan to die there, they just wanted to kill the character. That episode was such a Wall Banger.

Shire Nomad: Duck, I'm pretty sure Peter had to maintain focus just to keep from exploding on the spot; no flying or teleporting possible. The stuff already on the main page for the episode is legit, though.

I'm also pulling one of the "Landslide" examples: if DL had gone intangible, the bullet would have gone through him into Niki, defeating the purpose of stepping in front of it.

Tabby: Aside from what Shire Nomad said, bear in mind that Nathan knows how the regeneration works, and that if Claire shoots Peter in the base of the brain he's permanently dead. But he doesn't know for sure that the exploding will kill Peter (and we know from "Five Years Gone" that it wouldn't). Nathan is sacrificing himself (not that there's any doubt in my mind that he'll survive this) for his little brother as much as for the world.

Shale: I'm stowing this example from Heroes here until we've got some confirmation in the show that this is actually how that event played out.
Later, despite how several people are still healthy, alert, and armed with loaded guns, no one manages to see Sylar recover from his injuries and then drag himself several feet to a manhole so that he can escape. No one even delivers a coup to make sure the job is done.

I'm also pulling one of the "Landslide" examples: if DL had gone intangible, the bullet would have gone through him into Niki, defeating the purpose of stepping in front of it.

You shouldn't have. Remember that he can also make OTHER people intangible — a fact that was established in the prelude to that scenario. Basically, the purpose in question is already self-defeating (i.e. an Idiot moment).

ebrown2112: Peter would not have been able to read his father's mind, as Arthur was also a telepath and could have prevented him from doing so.

Pro-Mole: I've never seen Three's Company, And that's why I'm putting this into question: doesn't "Pretty much every episode of Three's Company" qualify on the "characters are supposed to act idiot" exception?

Twin Bird: I remember reading somewhere about the "second-order idiot plot," a Speculative Fiction story that takes place in a society that would cease to function if the vast majority of the people in it weren't idiots. Do we have an entry for that?

H. Torrance Griffin: The X-Factor entry is edging toward discussion, so I will continue thing here

The first commercial mutant-hunting squad. Government-sanctioned and private-hate-group mutant hunters were around in plenty before X-Factor. Not to mention do-it-yourself lynch mobs. And to be fair, its not like commercial mutant hunters proliferated widely afterwards, either.

The message sent to the general population (both 'human' and mutant alike) by a well advertised commercial operation dedicated to containment of Menacing Mutants is rather different than the one sent by terrorists and black ops orgs lurking in the shadows (or even lynch mobs). Would it me worth the trade-off if the mantle of the former were the only way to get to mutants before the latter did? One can make that argument; but the idea that a quintet containing two of the most well known, well connected, and publically accepted mutants (one of whom having money coming out of his ears*) would regard such a plan as the only option... call it Plot-Induced Stupidity, call it Executive Meddling to keep them away from Xavier's, but do not call it remotely sensable.

(*: And that is another thing. An 'outed' mutant bankrolling a mutant-hunting team, that will go well when someone digs enough to find it out.)

Peteman: I thought the Rebel Cruisers were there to A: take out any ships that might have been there (though they were probably expecting maybe 3 or 4 ships rather than a few dozen that were there, which would make sense since the Executor was actually waiting to greet Han and crew), and B: flatten the surface of the Death Star (or at least the relevant areas) so that any point defense weapons that were there would get destroyed so their fighters would have free reign in getting to the unprotected reactor.

The basis of the original X-Factor comic in the 1980s is a big fat Idiot Plot: A college friend of one of the original X-Men suggests it would be a good idea to go undercover as mutant hunters for hire (complete with advertising blitz) to find, capture, and "cure" dangerous mutants with menacing (read: newly manifesting and thus out of control) powers. Jean Grey had an excuse being recently fished out of the drink and all (and having her telepathy conveniently on the fritz), but why did all her old teammates think this would be a remotely healthy idea with the building Mutant Menace thing going on in the M.U.?

Because without access to a Cerebro device (and no ability to use it even if they had one, because it requires a functioning telepath to operate), they had no way to locate newly manifesting mutants on their own. The nationwide advertising blitz, on the other hand, guaranteed that people would immediately pick up the phone and report any newly manifesting mutants to X-Factor... in the mistaken belief that X-Factor was a bunch of mutant hunters abducting those 'evil muties' to their privately funded mutant prison. Instead of a group of mutants operating a secret shelter and school for young mutants under the cover of a bunch of mutant hunters and their privately funded mutant prison. And in a world with genuine mutant hunters whisking newly manifested mutants off to unmarked graves, you'd really rather that your phony mutant hunters find them first, no?

The publicity bit, I can see (and indeed under other circumstances would applaud). Problem is that, if memory serves, they were quite literally the first quasi-commercial Mutant-Busting squad and helped whip up a fair bit of paranoia (which was said College Buddy's plan all along).

The first commercial mutant-hunting squad. Government-sanctioned and private-hate-group mutant hunters were around in plenty before X-Factor. Not to mention do-it-yourself lynch mobs. And to be fair, its not like commercial mutant hunters proliferated widely afterwards, either.

Death Note has Idiot Plot with Light Yagami at points after L dies. Here's a glaring example: if he had taught Teru Mikami, a known Kira loyalist, the watch trick that Light himself uses for emergencies, then Teru Mikami wouldn't go to the bank a second time in a single day and Near wouldn't have been able to take effective advantage of Kiyomi Takada's kidnapping and death and he would have been far less able to expose Light and Mikami fast enough.

It's arguably worse than that. Light should've simply assumed that Near could've conceivably found out about the notebook in the bank, and told his partner to keep a few pages on his person. He would've then killed Near and everyone else without breaking a sweat. Not to mention the gloating well before his victory was assured. Oh, let's admit it: Light was defeated because he mastered the Idiot Ball.

Actually, Mikami was contacted through Takada before. Although Light did have sufficient chance earlier on to make sure Mikami kept a few pages on his person in case something went awry. And Light should have seen to this, considering he should have realized that can't even handle surprises very effectively—Lind L. Taylor's death proves that. Idiot Ball indeed. Of course, Death Note doesn't exactly concentrate on comedy. Oh, by the way, this troper heard that Death Note was supposed to end with L's death, but that would mean Kira winning, something Shounen Jump can't have. That would explain the rush job of the Near/Mello chapters. Want this troper's input? Try to contact him.''

because "the villain forgot to slightly modify one phase of a complex gambit in order to counter a hypothetical potential surveillance issue — OMG IDIOTBALL!!!" is... no.
Caswin: Regarding the Star Trek: Voyager example (well, it and Enterprise, but I've never seen that one): What would be an example of "a problem that had no logical reason to exist in the first place, except that the script demanded it"? I'll grant some things that are seriously unlikely to come up in real life - off the top of my head, see "Tuvix", exploring the moral implications of re-splitting an entity formed by the merging of two people - but I'm having trouble thinking of something that had no logical reason, in-show, to happen. Help?

Caswin: Removing it. And were the other Star Treks really immune to this? Or, rather, did Voyager and Enterprise really use such plots (if only on the part of the antagonists) that much more than the others? I'm tempted to think that those two are being listed because they're the least popular incarnations of the series. (That's acknowledging the obvious logic that that might be the genuine reason why they're less popular to begin with - it just feels like a knee-jerk reaction.)
Danel: I'm really not sure that the Harry Potter example counts - when other than in Book 5 do the adults withhold vital information from Harry? Not only that, but even in book five withholding the details of the prophecy only led to Harry angsting a bit - and Dumbledore wasn't just trying to protect Harry from the truth, but was also unsure whether or not Voldemort could simply pluck the information from Harry's mind.

The second example from Book Four definitely counts, though - there are ways to Fan Wank it, and it's not something you tend to notice on first reading, but it's a fair point.
Vorpal:Ninjacrat, the fact that you changed my entry means you probably didn't watch the movie. Trust me, MST3K would have a field day with this one.
Joie De Combat: Removed the Lost Odyssey example; cutting the train wasn't to save the kids from a train crash, it was to get them out of the line of fire of the enormous magical attack being aimed at Kaim and Sarah.
Seanette: Cutting The X-Files example, since there's a rather obvious and perfectly non-idiot explanation (that Ninjacrat keeps cutting out) for the fact that two very urban people who probably don't have the necessary skills or equipment to do so don't start a campfire when stranded in the woods.

ninjacrat: Tacking justifications onto a example? Is bad. Don't do it again.

Seanette: You'll be VERY busy cutting all of that from all over the Wiki, unless you're just targeting me.

ninjacrat: I have been very busy cutting it from the wiki, and of course I'm not targetting you, you silly bugger. I don't have the foggiest idea who you are.

The take-home lesson here is that Justifying Edits are bad. As it says in great big bold letters.

Charred Knight: Barring some kind of addition, Code Geass is over, and I deleted the things that made sense, and added the one thing that made no sense.

The original Iron Eagle. Think about this for a minute. A teenage kid living in the middle of the Cold War is able to hijack an F-16 in order to rescue his father imprisoned in an undisclosed Middle Eastern country. This essentially one-man campaign involves flying from his small town in the US to overseas, where he proceeds to issue ransom commands to the enemy air control tower before bombing a civilian oil refinery. After the extraction goes off without a hitch, the Middle Eastern jets immediately back off of any attempts at a counterattack upon realizing a handful of more F-16s are on the way. Back home, the press is easily convinced that the rescue was an official mission performed by a whole squadron, and the kid is given a slap on the wrists and acceptance into the US Air Force Academy. Is anyone in this movie sane?

What else could they do? They can't arrest him: a civilian trial would make the entire story a matter of public record, which would lead to a hideous diplomatic incident and make public the fact that Air Force security entirely sucks. They can't just let him go: he might decide to make a zillion dollars selling the movie rights to his story. Solution: Enlist his stupid ass, so that he can be ordered to keep his mouth shut, and discreetly court-martialled if he doesn't. Add in that he's obviously the most freak natural talent pilot in existence, given that just flying an F-16 is impossible for anyone who hasn't been to flight school, let alone defeating experienced enemy pilots in air-to-air combat, and, really, the only insane thing would be to not put his ass back in a cockpit working for you.

Whatever: Cutting the first 28 Weeks Later example, shown below, based on three things.
1. The Infected weren't "under control," they were gone, and had been for months. Too dumb to consider eating anything other than uninfected humans, they'd starved to death ages ago. Alice was only around because she was infected but immune to the Rage of Blinding Stupidity.
2. It wasn't obvious Alice was infected. Her only symptom was bloodshot eyes. Once the doctor giving her a medical exam noticed she had bite-shaped scars, she did a blood test to confirm it and told her commanding officer straight away, who responded by immedietly heading down to kill Alice. Nobody else knew, including the husband.
3. Why the hell would they waste guards on the rooms of random survivors they've found? Especially since they're already scattered throughout the building?
Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Cut these and put them here. The first is a Villain Ball, the second has a killer justifying edit, and the third is two Idiot Balls.

Zoids Guardian Force is an idiot plot for the duration of its run. The villain, Hiltz, wants to revive the "true" Deathsaurer and destroy the world. To do this, he makes a copy of the Deathsaurer's core and installs it into another Zoid, the Death Stinger. He then uses the Death Stinger to go on a cross-country rampage which not only alerts the world to his plot, but sees the protagonists develop the weapons and skills that are used to defeat him in the final episode as a response. There was nothing stopping him from simply revivng the Deathsaurer in about the middle of the series... save for the desire to sell more toys.

Lelouch and Suzaku's relationship in Code Geass R2 is wrecked because Lelouch won't tell Suzaku that what he did to Euphemia was an accident.

It actually wouldn't be a good idea to tell someone who already has crappy opinion of you that their loved one had to die because you were screwing around.

Considering how intelligent Lelouch, Schneizel, and Xingke are, you would think that someone would figure out that it would be best for all three to get together and have a discussion about how best to make peace. Instead, Schneizel builds a doom fortress that kills millions, Lelouch brainwashes hundreds of Britannian soldiers, and neither even try to have a discussion. Are they children or grown men?

Charred Knight: I stand by the two Code Geass ones, considering the portrayal of Suzaku and Lelouch after Lelouch tells him the truth I think everything could have been prevented by Lelouch and Suzaku just talking it out during the final episode of season 1. The whole confrontation becomes forced when their interactions in the short stories in Mutuality are so close. Hell just look at the picture Clamp drew of Emperor Lelouch, Suzaku is kissing Lelouch's sword in a clear freudian manner.

Look at this You don't think these two guys could have made up quickly?

Also we are supposed to think that Lelouch and Schneizel are well Intentioned extremist, so the whole war comes off as two children arguing over whose plan is better instead off three "geniuses" getting together and making a plan that works. The final two episodes only happen since Lelouch and Schneizel act like idiotic children instead of adults.

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Okay, I accept your argument for Lelouch being an idiot at the end of season 1. And I never doubted that Lelouch and Schneizel are idiots in that second example. But an Idiot Plot requires all the main characters to be idiots. Code Geass contains a lot of idiocy, but I'm reluctant to believe the idiocy's that universal. (You don't think Suzaku's an idiot, do you?)

Charred Knight: The problem is that the plot can only happen if no one points out that the entire casts wants the same thing at that point. At no point does anyone point blankly ask for Schneizel, and Lelouch to stop Raping The Dog and work together for their common goal. The whole thing comes off as Schneizel, Nunnaly, and Lelouch acting like babies trying to achieve the same goal all causing the destruction of Pendragon.

As for Suzaku I don't know what else you would call someone who's goal is to show the evil racist empire that Japanese can be useful. The only person in the entire Britannian government who is sympathetic and good is Euphemia. Those actions alone show him to be a complete moron.
Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Cut this and put it here. The justification kills this entry (though it may make room for a Voodoo Shark).

The war between Haven and Manticore in David Weber's Honor Harrington series is rapidly approaching this: formerly a simple good-versus-evil conflict, now both sides are led by good people who, in some cases, have worked actually together and like each other. Continuation of the conflict (which is now being goaded by an outside force both sides hate) would require an incredible amount of stupidity on both sides...fortunately Victor Cachat is on the case.

As much as this troper hates having to be fair to David Weber here, while this entire plot arc is full of raving stupidity to the nth degree, its not actually an Idiot Plot because the characters are making decisions that would be reasonable if the situation was actually like they thought it was. The idiocy is that in the aforementioned malevolent third party is actually able to lay such an extreme degree of disinformation on both Manticore and Haven, and keep the deception up for this long. Stupid frackin magic gorram Hand Wave nanite mind-control [descends into incoherent swearing]

Babylon 5 has its share. The season finale "Z'Ha'Dum" is a fine example. Sheridan takes the White Star to the Shadows' homeworld in the company of his wife Anna knowing that she's now a Shadow agent. After he leaves Babylon 5 a Shadow fleet appears and surrounds it. The station can't get a message to their ally Draal on Epsilon 3 because the Shadows are jamming their transmissions. So how come Draal, with his big alien supercomputer, can't detect the presence of the Shadow fleet? How come B5 didn't just send a continuous signal to Epsilon 3 so that if it got jammed Draal would know the station was in trouble? Meanwhile Sheridan on Z'Ha'Dum manages to shot a couple of Shadows with a concealed gun that neither Anna nor the Shadows or their other cronies managed to detect. Then he uses a miniature remote control that they also failed to detect to summon the White Star, which the Shadows never thought to blow out of orbit as a preventative measure. And if a small fleet of Shadow fighters can jam all the signals from a huge space station, how come the Shadows' homeworld can't jam the signal from one measly little remote? And the White Star just happens to be carrying two fully-armed nuclear warheads, which Sheridan somehow stole without either his own side or the Shadows detecting. And so the Shadow city goes boom... To Be Continued.

Stracyinski actually dealt with at least SOME of these in the Babylon 5 Lurker's Guide site.

The part where Sheridan managed to nuke the Shadow homeworld had to be handled in one of the Technomage books.

Grimace: Cut this and put it here for now. The funny thing is, whoever wrote it actually has made some good points (even though my retort to most of them is still "It's a movie. Make. Allowances.". Plus Nero was a miner driven by grief and rage, so wasn't exactly in the "Lets sit down and think this out" mindset, but I digress)...but it's buried under so much venom it just comes across as a long whining rant. So since there are good points there, should it be reworded?

The new Star Trek movie has this in spades. It's probably better just to list them, rather than have a huge paragraph.

Nero who when he goes back in time through a black hole which was going to be used to stop a supernova from destroying the galaxy (yes, Spock said "galaxy" not "solar system"

Nero decides the best thing for him to do in his mining ship is to destroy the first ship he sees, wait around for years until Spock comes out of the black hole, then blow up the Vulcan homeworld because Spock couldn't save his homeworld from a sun going supernova, which apparently no one bothered to evacuate from. So he blows up the Vulcan homeworld, rather than say returning to his home planet and making the Romulans invincible.

When Nero sees the escaped ship carrying the red matter (a huge sphere of it, where even a single drop can destroy a planet), and his response is "fire everything at it!", which would certainly kill them both, and maybe destroy the galaxy in the process.

Spock teleports Kirk to a frozen planet 20 kilometers from an outpost, populated by large killer beasts. If he died, that would be manslaughter. And even if Kirk servived, that's reckless endangerment of a Star Fleet enlistee.

All Kirk needs to do is make Spock show emotion to make him relieve himself of command, though a human captain could show emotion just so long as it doesn't interfere with their command. Kirk does, and Spock decided to relieve himself from the bridge.

They say that they have no captain, so Kirk sits down in the captain's chair and starts giving orders. Kirk at this point hasn't graduated, is suspended from the Academy, and is a stowaway, not even supposed to be on the ship. And he got into a fistfight with the previous captain. But not a single crewmember complains.

Charred Knight: I cut this just because while they do explain why his an idiot it doesn't change the fact that Lelouch acted dumber than his ever acted before. In a previous episode Lelouch was willing to prostrate himself before Suzaku, he begged Suzaku to save Nunnaly, but a few episode's later Lelouch is all of a sudden the Lelouch from the first season, completely egotistical, completely arrogant, not willing to listen to anyone and willing to risk everything on a plan that makes no sense just because it was his way and no once could accomplish anything except him. The only way the plot makes any sense is if you ignore the scene where Lelouch begs Suzaku to save Nunnaly. It's basically only makes sense if your remove Lelouch's character development, and just insert season 1 Lelouch into the end of the series. It also doesn't excuse the actions of Suzaku and C.C who allowed Lelouch to go through such a self destructive action. It's basically the equivalent of having the bartender refuse an acholic anymore drinks so the Alcholic's friends order some and then give it the acholic along with the key's to his car.

That wasn't an idiot plot so much as character consistency. Lelouch is shown over the course of the series to be incredibly proud such as not taking an obvious victory over Schneizel because it was handed to him, renouncing his nobility just because he couldn't manipulate his father, and annihilating the Geass Directory just so he could be the only Geass user (and partially because of Shirley's death) but mostly because of the excessive pride. Because of this it didn't matter that other people had plans just like his, it had to be HIS plan.

Another interpretation is that Lelouch had sold so much of his soul to achieve his vision of peace that he could not and would not allow someone else to take over it at the final stage. If you've actually given up that much of who you are to achieve a single goal, it would be terrible to learn that someone else had accomplished the exact same thing before you could.

Haven: I did you one better—that whole section was a natter magnet, and it's not an Idiot Plot for "wants to achieve world peace by nuking everyone" versus "wants to achieve world peace by Zero Requiem" to come into conflict. And this is a conversation that should be taking place here, in the discussion section, or on the forums.

The last few episodes of Code Geass, the UFN wants peace, Lelouch wants peace, Schneizel wants peace. So how is this handled? By fighting over which way to make peace is the best! You could argue that they where fighting over how to make the peace last, but Word of God states that the peace is temporary anyway. So thousands of people died in a war for something that could have been avoided by just talking about it. By the end the whole thing is revealed that Lelouch Schneizel, and Nunnaly had the exact same plan but with themselves as the evil overlord.

That wasn't an Idiot Plot so much as character consistency. Lelouch is one of the proudest people ever, just look back over everything he's done (He refuses an easy victory over Schneizel because it was handed to him, he renounces his nobility because he couldn't make his father avenge his mother's death, and he wiped out the Geass Directory so he would be the only one with the power and partially because of Shirley, but mostly because he wanted to be the only one with the Power of the King.) Given that he is such a proud character he would never let someone else enact HIS plan for peace. Plus he wanted to create a peaceful world for Nunally and she couldn't enjoy the peaceful world if she was the martyr for peace.

Lelouch was given Character Development where he loses a lot of his pride, and in one scene begs for Suzaku to save Nunnaly. Even if Lelouch had gained some back it shouldn't be enough that he would condemn thousands to die, and risk peace, just to prove that he could bring peace to the world his way. Even then why didn't Suzaku and C.C even try to make Lelouch see reason. Suzaku did some half ass attempts where he just says "is this really necessary" but C.C never even tries.

In C.C's case it's consistent with the character though, she apparently just doesn't care.

Given that Schneizel and Nunnally's idea of peace involves mass genocide via orbital bombardment and Schneizel has no plans of ever giving UP that power, Lelouch is fairly justified in executing his own plan while stopping Schneizel from burning the capital cities of the world with his orbiting nuke fortress. Perhaps a larger Idiot Plot is how the Black Knights split from Zero partially because they believed he allowed Fleija to go off by ignoring Schneizel's warning, and quit fighting rather than risk another one being fired, but freely and willingly team up with Schneizel, who is now openly operating a nigh-invincible fortress equipped with enough nukes to practically destroy the entire goddamn planet and fires them at will into cluttered battlefields, most likely killing hundreds of their own troops with each shot. Apparently Ohgi decided he was more afraid of Lelouch's Geass than a man with the power to kill civilization with fire by pushing a button.

If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, since Lelouch's plan is not about stoping Schneizel at all, and Schneizel is simply an obstacle to overcome on the WAY to achieving Lelouch's plan, and since the Black Knights dont know what Schneizel is planning at all and are in need of as much help as they can get, they are perfectly reasonable to join forces with Schneizel against Lelouch. After all, Lelouch had just attacked them, kidnapped their leaders, and conquered their homeland, and NONE of that had anything to do with Schneizel what so ever. If Lelouch had simply gone after Schneizel WITHOUT attacking the UFN first, then the Black Knights would have been Idiots for joining forces with him. but since Lelouch decided to attack the Black Knights FIRST, the Idiot Ball is all his. Apparently Lelouch decided that fighting Schneizel AND the Black Knights at the same time was easier then just fighting Schneizel.

This still doesn't change the fact that the BK decided to trust a prince of the enemy nation. Sure, Schneizel is a smooth talker, and Lelouch had done his fair number of mistakes, but...

Are we referring to repeated acts of mass murder as "mistakes" now ?. and During the last battle, Lelouch had just attacked the UFN, took their leaders hostage, and conquered japan. the alliance with Schneizel was an Enemy Mine situation. whether or not they trusted Schneizel (who up to that point has never been shown as anything but Affably Evil) isnt as importent as stopping an Evil Overlord who had made his (apparent) intentions very clear.Saying that they trusted an enemy prince ignores that they allied with him to take down the enemy emperor.

Schneizel flat out stated that he didn't care about the power, he just wanted peace. The final battle could have been easily averted by just sending diplomats and hammering a peace plan. The people who wanted death and destruction where all killed episodes before the end of the series. By the time Lelouch brainwashed the Britannia Royal family all of the major obstacles could be handled with diplomats but instead Lelouch, Schneizel, and Nunnaly came up with idiotic plans that involved millions dying.

Some New Guy: The Valkyria Chronicles entry seems to be more about Complaining About Plot Developments You Don't Like then any actual idiocy. Remove?

Welkin is supposed to be a genius, but when Alicia comes to him about being upset and overwhelmed by her powers, he just brushes her off; it might be more of an Idiot Ball moment than an entire plot, though, that scene is just a crux point for that arc. Thoughts?

Senevri: The Manga Remote is so full of stupid things I'm not sure how to classify them all. I think the latest one counts as an idiot plot: A girl commits suicide because she finds out she _might_ have contracted Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, after reading a book written about her, and her sister decides to murder the author of the book. But, as said I have trouble classifying all the stupidity contained within.

Hork Hork Hork: When I first saw the scene in Pan's Labyrinth where Ophelia eats the forbidden food, my initial reaction was that it was a classic Idiot Ball moment (not quite a full-blown Idiot Plot). Thinking back on it, however, I think the implication was that the food was enchanted and that she was drawn to it by some kind of irresitable magic. Otherwise, the scene simply makes no sense.

Is School Days really an idiot plot? I can see that the protagonist has an Idiot Ball firmly lodged in his brain with no plans to remove it, but most other characters seem to act fairly intelligently and don't do idiotic things (depending on what you believe their goals are).

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy